September 11 2019
Interlude made it to its goal of $19,500, completing the big ask but when giving it a lot of thought, it wasn’t a big ask after-all.
Interlude had a couple of things going for it, first the fan film is directly tied to Prelude to Axanar (it’s a sequel that’s not a sequel) and Prelude to Axanar and Axanar (in pre-production) fans love to spend money.
It also had big backers willing to back if people backed it for the exact total amount and people did to make sure $2400 in total was handed over, it was really clever and it saved the fundraising when it was spluttering.
In short, Interlude caught a ride in a slipstream.
You see, Prelude to Axanar and Axanar in terms of fan productions are the best slipstreams you’re going to get when it comes to getting somewhere related to fan films because you can’t build off the success of Continues or New Voyages and they are the two other productions that could spin some serious coin.
Now the slipstream is interesting because anything related to Axanar that is not promoted by Axanar doesn’t go far and everything that is promoted does go far and below are some examples of the slipstream used and not used.
A producer of Axanar’s videos, Stoggy needed a new computer and put up a fundraiser but it didn’t go very far because it wasn’t heavily promoted by Axanar.
But Stoggy later on needed a water pump for his house and Axanar promoted the fact and they had a fundraising special on YouTube and before too long Stoggy’s house had water.
JP’s Egotastic Funtime wants to go and do its thing during Axanar’s shoot in October but JP needs $750 to cover lost income whilst he is away doing that because doing something for nothing while bills need to be paid = bills not being paid.
Now people may be a little ticked off that a guy desires to be paid by the general public to a cover loss of income while he makes something for free but there are people who are fine with it.
If Axanar promotes JP’s GFM (GoFundMe) then you can be pretty much assured the slipstream will be in effect, it will be funded and everyone is happy in October.
So fan film makers, if you want to make a fan film or something related to Axanar then give Alec Peters a call and catch the Axanar slipstream, it actually works.
Until next time, be good to each other.
Mentioning Trekkie Mentions 
Hey there, T. I just wandered over to check out your latest few blog posts and noticed the first poll (now closed) in the upper right corner. Apparently, none of your readers felt like the Interlude GoFundMe would make it to its goal of $19,500, but 27 readers were certain it would fail.
That leads me to wonder why you haven’t written a blog commenting on the obvious skew of your readership. One would think that, were any Axanar supporters coming here, there would have been at least one vote showing some belief in Interlude and Jonathan. So why is it that a blog that claims to be fair and balanced when it comes to Axanar coverage (“Helping to keep the peace in the Axanar world”) is attracting only those who seem to be against the project and its supporters…well, besides me, but I just come for the free biscuits. 🙂
And if you wanted to get some extra credit on the assignment, T, ask yourself if perhaps you, yourself, are–either consciously or subconsciously—skewing you own coverage here to the negative…even if only slightly. And perhaps that is the reason that your audience is made up entirely of the naysayers out there.
Oh, and here’s an interesting thought to ponder! Which came first: the chicken or the egg? What I mean by this is, presupposing that your audience is skewed to the side of those against Alec and Axanar (and we can be pretty much certain from your polling results that it is), and assuming that your coverage skews toward the negative more than the positive (something I can see even in your coverage on this current blog…more on that next paragraph), then which of those two factors came first? In other words, did the folks whom I call “detractors” start reading your blog because they sensed a kindred spirit, or have you simply tailored your writing and slant toward what you feel your audience most wants to read? I suspect it’s more of the first–as I’ve been popping in since almost the beginning. But I also suspect you’ve cemented your bias over the months knowing that that’s where your bread is being buttered.
Okay, so how do I know you skew negative? Look at your blog above. First of all, you try to diminish the accomplishment of Interlude reaching its goal. After months of you and your readers predicting and voting on failure, I beat the odds. But instead of giving me some credit for a job well done, you say, “…when giving it a lot of thought, it wasn’t a big ask after-all.” And then you credit something entirely separate from my efforts when you say, “In short, Interlude caught a ride in a slipstream.” In other words, Jonathan simply got all his donors from his Fairy Garthfather.
Now, if I were covering this story in a fair and impartial way, T., I would have mentioned that, during Thousand Dollar Thursday, Jonathan managed to bring in not only the $1200 he needed to get that amount tripled to $3600 but also an additional nearly $2,000 over that. In fact, he’d hit the upper limit of the matching funds after only 10 hours, meaning that, for 14 hours, folks were contributing without their donations being matched/tripled. At the end of that single day, 70 individual donations were made, 30 from existing donors and 40 from new donors.
Then I’d wonder about those 40 new donors (a 25% increase over the 160-or-so I’d had before that day). By mid-August, the Interlude campaign had already been up for two months and had likely soaked up nearly all of the Axanar supporters I was likely to get. I’d been mentioned in Alec’s July newsletter to his existing donor list, I’d appeared on Axanar Confidential, I’d been getting weekly shout-outs and tweets from Alec, and I’d been posting regular Interlude blog features and updates to both Fan Film Factor and the Axanar website and blanketing social media…especially the Axanar Fan Group. So how did I suddenly get 40 new donors in a single day? They were certainly not part of the “slipstream.”
So I would have reached out to Jonathan and asked him his thoughts about that, T. Instead, you essentially ignored and minimized the achievement. Why would you make that choice if you were really as “fair and balanced” as you claim to be. I think you know the answer. Your readers certainly do or else they wouldn’t be here.
If you’re curious how I got over $5,000 in a single day and attracted 40 new donors, the answer is that I did a lot of behind-the-scenes planning and set-up prior to the actual Thousand Dollar Thursday. I asked dozens of fan filmmakers like Vance Owen and Gary Davis and Mark Naccarato to post or tweet about the event to their own Facebook pages and donor groups. I appeared on Egotastic Funtime that Monday and also made certain to call into Axanar Confidential (the latter probably helping with the 30 existing backers donating again that day). I blogged multiple times counting down to the event and sent out reminders to my existing donors. And as I said, that probably led to the 30 repeat donors. But most of all, I got a special shout-out from Marc Zicree of Spaaaaaaace Command in an e-mail update for this multi-thousand Kickstarter donor list for his project. That shoutout had been ready to go for a few weeks, but we held it off until 11:30pm that Wednesday night. By the time I woke up six hours later, I had nearly $600…all of it from brand new donors mostly in other countries that were awake while I’d been asleep. Four hours later, I was at $1200. Throughout the day, I posted donation updates to Facebook with links to the page. Success breeds success and joy spreads joy. I never took anything for granted and never believed in a slipstream. I believed in myself, my team, my supporters, and the hard work I was willing to out in.
Look, T, I could point to dozens and dozens of things I did to get the Interlude GFM to its goal–from thanking every donor personally by name to writing at least one fresh Interlude blog a week and posting at least one donor update per week for three months to appearing on podcasts and getting shoutouts to PMing and e-mailing nearly every fan filmmaker on my contact list. I could point to all of the positivity and goodwill I’ve built up writing Fan Film Factor for nearly four years.
But as far as your analysis goes, everything I did was completely unnecessary because…
“…if you want to make a fan film or something related to Axanar then give Alec Peters a call and catch the Axanar slipstream, it actually works.”
And that…is why you fail.
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The skew that you see is the skew because that’s just how it is, you see unlike Axanar or Fan Film Factor or AxaMonitor, I don’t have a FB group or Page to personally spread what I write so what I write is thrown into the wind and fate determines what happens.
Most visits come from searches and occasionally I write something that gets people to come because they agree or disagree on how it is, that’s just how it is.
Now if I wanted to be negative, I could of closed and binned the poll as delete is next to close and nobody may have have noticed but instead it was closed and left up as a record and I would of gotten around to writing about it but you did post a 42 minute interview that required attention.
Also there was that whole thing about breasts that required a lot of reading to figure out what everyone was yammering on about, the conclusion to that is that it’s a very bad idea to discuss anything personal regarding partners and family.
The Slipstream is true and you know it, your fan production is in the wheel tracks of Prelude to Axanar and that’s the best fan production out there to pick up the action from because it has the recognition that no other fan film has and it’s the only one anyone can launch from.
Axanar also has the controversy that attracts people as it stands to be the answer to all of CBS’s ‘wrongs’ in how they manage fans and tv shows, we both know there is a division in fandom and Axanar presents an alternative, one people are willing to pay for.
The two big $1200 donations were going to be paid in full because who would pass up on the opportunity to spend $50 to make $150 on something they believe in?
Is there belief in you from ‘negative skewed people’? Heck yeah there is, heck if you were in charge of Axanar, we would not be here because it would be signed, sealed and delivered by now and I believe we have already discussed that sentiment.
We both have flaws in our presentations, you could of stopped Alec when he said Carlos knows nothing about making real films in your interview because you know Carlos has produced motion pictures as you like to know things for cases.
Now I am going back to sleep as it 4am but I felt it was important to answer you as soon as possible, if I was anti everything associated with Axanar I would not of answered promptly and definitely not at all.
Have a great day.
PS – The talk about Biscuits is as annoying to me as the jokes about Sushi.
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I happen to have insider information on how one of those negative votes above became a backer of Interlude. An author and an illustrator told a story that caught my attention. As a naval history buff, I came to respect a new character who only appeared in a few frames of the story. Bravery and sacrifice in warfare have engaged imaginations since there have been stories of war. That’s what it took.
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Wow. captjon1 seems really, really upset to rant all that crap against somebody he feels has ‘failed’.
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It felt like being graded but I don’t go to Lane University (or any for that matter).
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1,165 words for the Human Fleshlight to remind everyone how self-conscious and inferior he feels on a daily basis.
That was… enlightening.
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Calling him Human Fleshlight is not nice, also calling him that is fodder for him the next time there is a need for theatrics on an Axanar related piece on FFF.
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captjon1, in reverse – I ask you, why is your audience primarily positive to Axanar? Do you have control over that? Does that have something to do with your writing?
Why do you espouse beliefs on only a select few?
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